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GCP Certification Cheat Sheet

Last updated: June 2025

More cheatsheets: Cloudoku Training Cheatsheets

Table of Contents

1. Compute Services

Compute Engine

  • Purpose: Scalable VMs in Google Cloud.
  • Machine Types: E2, N2, N2D, C2, A2, custom
  • Pricing Models: On-demand, preemptible, committed use, sole-tenant
  • Key Features: Instance groups, autoscaling, live migration, custom images
  • Example (gcloud): 
    gcloud compute instances create my-vm --zone=us-central1-a --machine-type=e2-medium --image-family=debian-11 --image-project=debian-cloud
  • Exam Tip: Understand sustained use discounts and preemptible VMs.

App Engine

  • Purpose: Fully managed PaaS for web apps.
  • Environments: Standard (sandboxed), Flexible (custom runtimes)
  • Features: Autoscaling, zero server management, traffic splitting

Cloud Functions

  • Purpose: Event-driven serverless functions.
  • Triggers: HTTP, Pub/Sub, Cloud Storage, Firestore, etc.
  • Example (gcloud): 
    gcloud functions deploy myFunction --runtime python310 --trigger-http --allow-unauthenticated
  • Exam Tip: Pay only for function execution time.

Cloud Run

  • Purpose: Serverless containers (run any language in Docker containers).
  • Features: HTTP endpoints, auto-scale to zero, fully managed or Anthos

Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE)

  • Purpose: Managed Kubernetes clusters.
  • Features: Node pools, auto-upgrades, auto-repair, integrates IAM

2. Storage Services

Cloud Storage

  • Purpose: Object storage for unstructured data.
  • Storage Classes: Standard, Nearline, Coldline, Archive
  • Features: Lifecycle management, versioning, uniform bucket-level access
  • Example (gsutil): 
    gsutil cp file.txt gs://mybucket/
  • Exam Tip: Know when to use each storage class and their cost tradeoffs.

Persistent Disk

  • Purpose: Block storage for Compute Engine VMs.
  • Types: Standard (HDD), Balanced/SSD, Extreme SSD, Local SSD

Filestore

  • Purpose: Managed NFS file storage for GKE, Compute Engine.

Transfer Service & Storage Transfer

  • Purpose: Move data into/out of GCP from cloud or on-prem.

3. Database Services

Cloud SQL

  • Purpose: Managed relational DB (MySQL, PostgreSQL, SQL Server).
  • Features: Backups, failover, replicas, IAM integration

Cloud Spanner

  • Purpose: Horizontally scalable, strongly consistent relational DB.
  • Features: Global transactions, automatic sharding, high availability

Firestore & Datastore

  • Purpose: NoSQL document DBs for web/mobile apps.
  • Features: Real-time sync, offline mode, scalable

Bigtable

  • Purpose: NoSQL wide-column database for analytics, time series.

Memorystore

  • Purpose: Managed Redis/Memcached cache.

BigQuery

  • Purpose: Serverless data warehouse for analytics (see Analytics section)

4. Networking & Content Delivery

VPC (Virtual Private Cloud)

  • Purpose: Provision private networks, subnets, routes, firewall rules.
  • Features: Shared VPC, Private Google Access, custom/auto mode

Cloud Load Balancing

  • Types: HTTP(S), SSL Proxy, TCP/UDP, Internal
  • Features: Global, regional, cross-region, integrates with Cloud Armor (WAF)

Cloud CDN

  • Purpose: Low-latency content delivery at edge locations.

Cloud Interconnect & VPN

  • Purpose: Dedicated private links (Interconnect) or encrypted tunnels (VPN) to GCP.

Cloud DNS

  • Purpose: Scalable, managed DNS service.

5. Security, Identity & Compliance

Cloud IAM

  • Purpose: Manage who/what can access GCP resources (users, service accounts, roles)
  • Best Practices: Least privilege, custom roles, service account separation

Cloud Identity

  • Purpose: Identity management for users/devices across GCP and SaaS

Cloud Key Management Service (KMS)

  • Purpose: Secure key generation, storage, and management

Cloud Audit Logs

  • Purpose: Track all admin/user/data access and API calls

Security Command Center

  • Purpose: Central security visibility and threat detection

Cloud Armor

  • Purpose: DDoS and application firewall protection

6. Analytics & Machine Learning

BigQuery

  • Purpose: Serverless, scalable data warehouse for analytics.
  • Features: Standard SQL, federated queries, ML integration
  • Example (bq): 
    bq query --use_legacy_sql=false 'SELECT COUNT(*) FROM `project.dataset.table`'

Dataflow

  • Purpose: Serverless stream and batch data processing (Apache Beam)

Dataproc

  • Purpose: Managed Spark/Hadoop clusters

Pub/Sub

  • Purpose: Global messaging for event-driven systems (queues, topics)

Vertex AI

  • Purpose: Unified ML platform for building, training, deploying models

Looker

  • Purpose: Business intelligence, dashboards, data visualization

7. Developer Tools & Management

Cloud Deployment Manager

  • Purpose: Infrastructure as code (similar to CloudFormation/ARM templates)
  • Example: 
    resources:
- name: my-vm
  type: compute.v1.instance
  properties:
    zone: us-central1-a
    machineType: zones/us-central1-a/machineTypes/e2-medium
    disks:
    - deviceName: boot
      type: PERSISTENT
      boot: true
      autoDelete: true
      initializeParams:
        sourceImage: projects/debian-cloud/global/images/family/debian-11
    networkInterfaces:
    - network: global/networks/default

Cloud Logging & Monitoring (Operations Suite)

  • Purpose: Metrics, logs, uptime checks, alerts

Cloud Source Repositories

  • Purpose: Private Git hosting

Cloud Build

  • Purpose: CI/CD pipelines

Cloud Scheduler

  • Purpose: Cron jobs as a service

8. Migration & Hybrid Cloud

Migrate for Compute Engine

  • Purpose: Migrate VMs from on-premises or other clouds to GCP

Transfer Appliance

  • Purpose: Hardware transfer for large datasets

Anthos

  • Purpose: Manage Kubernetes clusters and workloads across hybrid/multi-cloud

9. Application Integration

Cloud Tasks

  • Purpose: Task queues for distributed services

Workflows

  • Purpose: Serverless orchestration for multi-service workflows

API Gateway

  • Purpose: Manage and secure APIs

Apigee

  • Purpose: Full lifecycle API management

10. Cost Management & Optimization

  • Cloud Billing Reports: Track and analyze GCP spending
  • Budgets and Alerts: Set spend limits and notifications
  • Pricing Calculator: Estimate costs before deploying resources
  • Committed Use Discounts: Save with long-term commitments

11. Best Practices and Tips

  • Use labels for resource management and cost tracking
  • Enforce least privilege with IAM roles
  • Enable Cloud Audit Logs and review regularly
  • Automate backups and disaster recovery
  • Monitor with Cloud Monitoring and set alerts
  • Use autoscaling for compute and managed services

12. Preparing for GCP Certifications

  • Build a study plan and get hands-on with Cloud Console & gcloud CLI
  • Take Cloudoku’s practice exams and cheatsheets
  • Explore Google Cloud Skills Boost, Qwiklabs, and whitepapers

Good luck on your GCP certification journey!